Page 18 of Mayflower

We start walking again.

My head is pounding. I can’t see anything, and I’m grateful he has a clear head.

“We could wait it out in the jungle. Overnight if needed,” Ali explains. “But you might not make it. Soon, you’ll pass out from blood loss. So, there is only one option.”

“That is?”

There are more lights ahead. More voices.

Ali stops abruptly, removes his vest and duty belt, and drops them into the bushes. He tucks a handgun under his belt and lets the dark undershirt loose over it.

“Now,” he says, “it actually works for the better that you are not stable. Maybe you’ll pass off as a drunk.”

His words pulsate in and out of my brain. I am close to passing out. But I try to focus on what he’s saying.

“You are not into praying,” he says, “but this is a good time to start. Let’s pray we manage to pass through and get in.”

“Get in where?” I ask, confused.

“Port Mrei,” he says as we step into the clearing outside the jungle that gives us a view of the town’s outskirts.

We pause to catch our breaths.

The dark shadows of the buildings loom ahead, pit-fires here and there. The rain is subsiding, letting the darkness rule. The howling and laughing in the distance sound like the slums are coming back to life after the rain.

“I grew up in a place like this,” Ali says, but without bitterness. Nostalgia, more like it, when he adds, “Welcome to hell.”

7

RAVEN

PORT MREI / A WEEK AGO

I can only breathe in shallow breaths, the air choking me. Pain pulsates through my torso and radiates down, making my legs weak.

Ali and I stumble through the dark streets. I don’t remember Port Mrei being this dark. Some street lamps are flickering but most are gone. Or maybe I’m on the verge of passing out. If it weren’t for Ali’s strong body supporting me, I would’ve collapsed already.

There are wild shouts on the neighboring street. Dogs bark. Shots pierce the air in the distance, an automatic rifle. A bottle is smashed somewhere just a bit ahead of us. A loud group cackle follows.

Fuck.

It smells like smoke and garbage and something rotting. It smells like doom.

I walk on, leaning on Ali, my arm around his shoulder, trying to keep my eyes open even though everything is spinning. The stuffy air clogs my lungs. I breathe in tiny breaths, trying to minimize the excruciating pain from my stab wound.

I’m barely conscious when we hear voices approaching fast. Someone stops us. Ali murmurs something in a low voice. An apology? There are crude remarks. An angry order. There is a rough push at my shoulder, and I summon the strength to fight whoever that is.

But Ali lets go of me. And then there’s sudden movement, grunts, and bones cracking.

“Move!” Ali yanks me into the shadows, a path between two houses, to the backyards.

For a moment, we are running, skirting the buildings. To be exact, Ali is running and I’m following by inertia, half-blind, half-conscious.

I barely understand where we are when we stop in front of the back door to a large house. Ali knocks. The sound of the chain behind the door breaks the eerie silence. Then the door opens, but I don’t know who did it and where we are because my body gives out, and I slip into darkness.

When I open my eyes, I lie in a small room. I hear a woman’s voice right next to me. For a second, I think it’s Maddy. When I peel my eyes open, the light from a naked bulb in the center of the ceiling slices my vision with a sharp assault.

I grunt and squint, shielding my eyes. When I try to get up, the pain in my abdomen pierces through me like a bullet.

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